Baseball suspension

Alex Rodriguez has been a galvanizing figure in baseball for many years. A super-talented shortstop for the Seattle Mariners as a teenager, he followed big money to the Texas Rangers and then the biggest money of all to the New York Yankees.

But it was just in recent years that he became even more controversial when he became the focus of an investigation about performance-enhancing drugs - in a game still recovering from a black eye it suffered from widespread drug use in America's pastime in the 1990s into the early part of the 21st century.

Last week, an arbiter actually reduced a suspension levied against Rodriguez from more than 200 games to 162 games. But the suspension means Rodriguez isn't eligible to play the 2014 regular season or post-season, should the Yankees advance to the playoffs. Many baseball fans saw the suspension as fitting the crime. Rodriguez and his lawyers, however, seem to think that the player - known to many as A-Rod - is being unfairly targeted and that his rights are being violated. Rodriguez filed a lawsuit Monday against the league and against the players' association, which supported the suspension.

It is possible that Rodriguez's stature in the game turned him into an example of sorts by the auditor to punish a big-name player, showing baseball really is trying to make amends for a tainted decade.

But there's just one problem: Rodriguez is guilty. The findings of the investigation show that A-Rod was juiced when he played for several years, and he lied about it to the public when confronted about the possibility. And in the lawsuit, Rodriguez didn't dispute the findings of the probe, just the technicalities surrounding it.

Major League Baseball did the right thing by turning the issue over to an arbiter. And the arbiter did the right thing by imposing the stiffest suspension on an active player so far. A-Rod deserves to sit at least a full season. He's not a victim. He cheated. He got caught. He should be punished.

And that punishment should cost him - dearly. In A-Rod's case this suspension will cost him tens of millions of dollars.

That's appropriate because his actions have cost baseball credibility. And given the scandals of the past 20 years, it didn't have a lot of credibility to start with.

All-time hits leader Pete Rose is banned from baseball because he bet on his team to win games when he was the manager of the Cincinnati Reds. The reason? Baseball officials believed he may have cheated to win bets. How different is it, then, when A-Rod and others use drugs to cheat?

A one-season suspension may be too lenient.

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Baseball suspension

Alex Rodriguez has been a galvanizing figure in baseball for many years. A super-talented shortstop for the Seattle Mariners as a teenager, he followed big money to the Texas Rangers and then the